Author Louis Sachar returns with a spinoff of his kids classic, 'Holes'

By CECELIA GOODNOW, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Monday, January 9, 2006

Louis Sachar returns to the literary scene in a big way today with the release of "Small Steps," his first major children's book since 1998's "Holes," a modern classic with a special place in Seattle's heart.

Publisher Random House is billing Sachar's new release as a companion novel to "Holes," but don't read too much into that.

The two books have little in common apart from sharing a couple of characters. In "Small Steps" we reconnect with Armpit and X-Ray -- second-tier characters in "Holes" -- two years after their release from the fantastically grim Camp Green Lake detention center as they struggle toward success in wildly diverse ways.

"I think (the new book) definitely stands on its own," Sachar said from his home in Austin, Texas, on the eve of a national tour that will sweep through Seattle Jan. 24.

"It's got familiar characters from 'Holes' to, hopefully, attract some of that readership," he said. "(But) it does have a different, much more realistic tone."

Random House has rolled out a first printing of 500,000 copies, signaling high expectations. Seattle book stores have been quietly stocking up in advance of today's release date, and the Seattle Public Library has a healthy 25 copies on order.

The countdown, however, has generated surprisingly little word of mouth, possibly because Sachar is so tight-lipped about his projects that even his editor was reportedly caught off-guard when she received the manuscript.

By the middle of last week, many of Seattle's key children's booksellers hadn't yet read Sachar's new book, although they said they were looking forward to it. Several school librarians expressed surprise upon hearing that a "Holes" spinoff was in the offing.

"I just think a lot of people don't know about it," said Chance Hunt, youth services coordinator for Seattle Public Library. "The buzz is yet to come."

That's likely to change in a hurry -- at which point, the buzz will center on whether "Small Steps" lives up to "Hole's" high quality. It's a tough call, because the books are so different.

Publisher's Weekly, in an early review, called the spinoff "disappointingly flat" and knocked it for a "rather contrived plot twist" and some "sensational melodrama," while grudgingly allowing it has "some credible intrigue."

That seems unduly harsh for what is, in sum, a lively, compelling book with some interesting things to say about racial stereotyping, disability and the search for identity.

"I loved it!" said Holly Myers, children's book buyer at The Elliott Bay Book Co. "You can't compare it to 'Holes.' I found the tone to be different. 'Holes' was so dark. Camp Green Lake was not a happy place."

"Small Steps" is set in a Texas suburb, where Armpit -- nee Theodore -- is finishing high school and working hard as a landscape assistant. Although "Holes" showed him as a "gruff, tough kid," in Sachar's words, Armpit has found redemption through his friendship with Ginny, the first person who has ever believed in him.

It's an unusual tie, given that Ginny is 10 years old, has cerebral palsy and is white to Armpit's black.

His slog toward a better life is derailed when jive-talking X-Ray, aiming for a shortcut to success, persuades him to bankroll a ticket-scalping scheme. Throw in a lonely, vulnerable teen idol and a near-fatal bludgeoning and the plot thickens.

"Small Steps" offers humor, suspense, thoughtful themes and great characters -- but not the intricate plotting and dark, fantastical vision of "Holes."

Its straightforward, hopeful narrative makes it both highly accessible and arguably less memorable than its predecessor, which by any measure was a tough act to follow. "Holes" was a grand, multitiered puzzle about overcoming destiny. "Small Steps" is linear and more conventionally suspenseful.

"It's not about fate," Sachar said, "it is about taking your own small steps to advance your goal."

Slow and steady has been Sachar's own formula through nearly 30 years of writing. He sold his first manuscript, "Sideways Stories From Wayside School," the same week he entered law school in San Francisco. After graduating in 1980, he worked part time as a lawyer for eight years while pursuing writing, his first love.

"Law school," he said, "was something to fall back on, as my mother would say."

To avoid scraping bottom creatively, Sachar writes for only two hours a day and often feels he has little to show for his efforts. Yet it all adds up.

"That's where 'Small Steps,' the title, comes from," Sachar said quietly. "That's the way I work -- to do a little each day."

In the case of "Holes," it added up to a Newbery Medal, a National Book Award for Young People's Literature and a Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award.

Besides selling more than 5 million copies, "Holes" sparked a 2002 Seattle Children's Theatre adaption scripted by Sachar and a 2003 Disney/Walden Media film for which he wrote the screenplay.

Coinciding with the play's world premiere in Seattle, thousands of local schoolchildren read "Holes" -- and received their own copies -- through the ambitious program, "What If All Kids Read the Same Book?" Four years later, the "All Kids" program has never been repeated, although its adult counterpart continues.

Given how current "Holes" still feels, it's a bit of a shock to realize it was published a month before "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Since then, J.K. Rowling has advanced the wizard epic through another five, massive, installments, taking Harry from age 11 to an adolescent 16.

Meanwhile, until "Small Steps," Sachar had pumped up his book list with only a couple of slim "Marvin Redpost" titles from his popular series for beginning readers.

What gives? Did writer's block set in?

Sachar, thoughtful and low-key, pondered the question -- as he ponders every question. The phone fell silent long enough to suggest a bad connection.

His reply, when it came, was delivered in a soft voice, with a lawyer's economy.

"I think it was more the movie," he said, "and just being caught up in the whirlwind of Hollywood."

Acknowledging it took him a while to get back in the "mindset" of writing, he said, "I have a lot more confidence about my writing because of 'Holes' and how it was received. I feel like I can tackle bigger projects."

Ask Sachar why he decided to revisit Armpit and another silence ensues.

"Probably because of his name," he said finally.

Then he spilled the backstory: During a low point in the filming of "Holes," Sachar toyed with a follow-up novel that had X-Ray complaining to Armpit about Hollywood ripping off their story.

"It was a time when I was pretty frustrated with how the movie was going," said Sachar, adding that the problems eventually got worked out. "I maybe worked on it (that story idea) a few weeks, is all, but I liked the relationship I developed between the characters."

Sachar said Ginny, who helps transform Armpit, was inspired by the daughter of one of Sachar's own friends, who met with him to help him understand what living with cerebral palsy is like.

Racial stereotyping is an important theme of "Small Steps," as it was in "Holes," and here Sachar is quick to speak up.

"The media always portrays black teenagers a certain way," he said. "I just wanted to portray someone who didn't fit that stereotype of hip-hop ..."

He paused and groped for words. "I'm not even sure how to say it."

Another pause, then, "The media tends to portray black teenagers as more style than substance."

Armpit, big in body and heart, is the opposite.

Sachar, a bridge buff who's married and has a nearly 19-year-old daughter, said "Holes" hasn't changed his life much, except that "I have more money than I had before. I've never been a very materialistic person who had to have things. I still have the same routine, I still live in the same house."

As for how "Holes" changed the rest of us, Hunt, from Seattle Public Library, offers this perspective:

"I don't know that the writing of children's literature changed overnight," he said. "I think its influence is in maintaining a level of quality. There's a lot of junk coming out. This sets the bar higher."

Regardless of how "Small Steps" or future books are received, Hunt said, "Holes" assures Sachar's place in a pantheon shared by Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and Judy Blume's "Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing" -- other contemporary tales with universal, long-lasting appeal.

"It's one of those books in the canon of this generation of kids," Hunt said. "I think it's going to stand the test of time."